Well, Richard Beers and Bob Levi said that they
would do it—and they kept their promise.

The
2012 Newport Beach THE Show was noticeably bigger
and better than 2011, with two hotels, large crowds
(rumored at 7500 or so), constant traffic, and tons
of food, drink, and music everywhere. Several
hundred high-end audio companies converged on the
Hilton and Atrium hotels, attracting thousands of
show-goers. Just like last year, the weather was
perfect, the vibe was strongly positive, and the
good times rolled! Hard to beat it… you had to join
it!

Michael Fremer and Bob Levi on Day 1 of The Show
Newport Beach 2012

This
year's THE Show NB had more rooms than last year. My
schedule was very busy, since I was participating in
the two "Meet the Press" seminars, and moderating
two sessions of our "Super High Resolution: The New
Download" seminar on downloadable DSD. (Great sets,
by the way.)

The seminar panel on DSD: excellent turnout, and
very substantive content… hard to beat!

This
subtracted a number of hours from my days on
Saturday and Sunday, cutting in on my coverage time
in the rooms. This meant that I wasn't able to
circulate nearly as much as I would have
otherwise… apologies to all the rooms that I missed!
(Yes, I've already heard from some of you.)

Lila Ritsema, Business Manager of PFO, with
Wendell Diller of Magnepan

On
the other hand, my focus at audio shows hasn't been
in trying to compile a complete list of rooms—hasn't been for a long time now. Elsewhere in this
issue, we have reports from other PFO members
to help you get a feel for that. Instead, my
concentration is on finding the rooms that
demonstrated real synergy, audio coolosity, and the
"Heck yeah!" factor when you sat down to listen.
They pulled you in; they seduced you with their
musical charms; they made you glad you came.

Bob Levi with Holger Stein of Stein Music… Bob and
PFO are very keen on Holger's work.

Years ago, these special rooms were the ones that I
called "audio oasis" places. I developed my PFO
Audio Oasis! awards back in 2006 to tip my hat to
the places that really brought things together and
made some magic. As I noted in my inauguration of
this prize in my CES 2006 report back in PFO
Issue 23 (http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue23/ces06dr.htm):

True confessions time: I've given up on "seeing
everything" at CES/T.H.E. Show. You just can't do it
and maintain your sanity. In my opinion, the best
person writing that kind of show report was
PFO's
Dave "Iron Man" Glackin, who finally hung up the
proverbial towel a couple of years ago. He offered
to transfer the title and function of "Iron Man" to
some other worthy at
PFO,
but got no takers. (Knowing the work load, I wasn't
surprised.)

And I can sympathize. If you haven't been to a large
audio show with the responsibility of trying to do
the whole thing—and report on same—well, brother,
you just haven't lived. The pace is frantic, keeping
the notes both straight and sufficient is a major
pain, and photographing people/gear/settings is a
feat in itself. Having attended many of these events
since 1994, and having engaged in the pain of the
long distance runner, I've reached the point of
picking and choosing in order to avoid frustrating
myself and jading my senses.

Yep… it's extremely important to "…avoid frustrating
myself and jading my senses" while attending fine
audio shows. Who needs burn-out? And many of the
so-called "show reports" that I see (some published
within a few hours of the end of that same day)
aren't really "reports." They're simply a dump of a
damned camera card, and very little else. It simply
isn't possible to do show reporting without the time
to sort out your impressions. Real journalism takes
some time, you know.

Think of it as an inconvenient truth.

By
the way, audio burn-out was definitely not
true of the PFO Hospitality Room up on the
third floor of the Hilton! Well stocked with single
malt whiskey, bourbon, red wine (mainly!), and even
bottled water for the less indulgent, I must say
that things were definitely mellow and filled with
music and fun for one and all! Tons of folks dropped
by; I didn't see any disappointed faces.

One
again Dave and Carol Clark did a great job in lining
up our highly cool magical music machine! Featuring
a Music Hall MMF2.1 turntable, the always over-performing Oppo
Digital BDP-95 universal player, Macbook-based
iTunes action, amplification by Bel Canto, two-way
speakers by Marten, cables by Nordost, Cardas,
Furutech, Oyaide, and WyWires, along with AC
conditioning by Silver Circle… great sound, all day long.

And
REAL MUSIC!

Dave and Carol Clark: My unindicted co-conspirators
here at PFO

The
night life was exceptional, too! Many friends, and
many meetings. (People are what this is ultimately
all about. If you think that fine audio is primarily
about hardware… well, you have a few things to
learn, amigo!) Out to dinner for some great food and
drink, followed by sitting out and checking out
Michael Mercer doing his DJ THING was
excellenté!

PFO's
Pete Davey next to DJ Michael Mercer, struttin' his
technique! (Photo and fresco by a highly relaxed
Robinson…)

...and more…

…and even a bit more!

Even with all the DJing, Michael can still hang with
the home boys at CEntrance the next day!

Great times!

Ah
well. Back to it.

Every year it is my pleasure to give my Audio Oasis!
awards, and so it's what I do for our show reports
now. This year I found some old friends whose rooms
really touched the place of audio desire reliably
once more, but also encountered some new rooms that
made me very glad that I had discovered them.
Remember that audio show conditions are always
very tough for the production The winners are
briefly profiled for you below.

On
to the rooms! In no particular order…

In which Jonathan Tinn cues up another LP on the
Wave Kinetics NVS turntable with Durand Telos
Tonearm and Ortofon Anna MC…

Well, here's an old friend, and no surprise to find
this room once again in Audio Oasis! land. Year
after year, the combination of Playback Designs
(DSD/SACD), Wave Kinetics (turntable) with its
Durand Telos Tonearm and Ortofon Anna MC, darTZeel
preamp and amp, and Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOne
speakers have set a standard for state-of-the-art
audio performance that is reliably superb. I have
praised the many excellencies of this
extraordinarily synergistic system repeatedly: utter transparency, exceptional imaging and
soundstaging, natural ease, musicality without
compromise, harmonic and music richness, dynamic
slam… whatever you're looking for, it's here!

Source files were DSD and 2x DSD prepared by Bruce
Brown of Puget Sound Studios via the Playback
Designs MPS-3, fed by a Windows 7-based computer. I
would consider the 2x DSD to be true master-level
reference caliber… if you heard these, then you know
what I mean. The Wave Kinetics NVS turntable with
the brilliant Durand Telos tonearm and the equally
fine Ortofon Anna MC provided LP playback of the
highest order.

Once
again, I spent a lot of time in this room, and for
all the right reasons. Unless something changes
drastically in the Blue Light room, I imagine that
you'll see them continue to win awards from me… this
is a very tough act to follow.

Another Audio Oasis! Award for Blue Light Audio and
associated companies… and richly deserved once more.

The
first room that I dropped in on in this space-time
continuum was Dan Meinwald's E.A.R. USA setup. He
was located right near the PFO Hospitality
Room on the third floor of the Hilton. Dan is
another person who knows great music, the real thing
in audio gear, and terrific recordings. Just
dropping in to spend time with him is always a
pleasure, especially since he always brings along
LPs that make it hard to leave! You'll always see a
stack of LPs (or two… or three) leaning against
something, somewhere in his room.

This
year was no exception, since Dan was once again
getting a ton of real music out of his E.A.R. gear,
the Townshend Rock 7 turntable, and Marten
loudspeakers. Even in show conditions, and right out
of the gate, this room was intimate, warm, detailed,
and always musical, qualities that I've come to
expect from a Meinwald setup. And I have to say that
the mating of the E.A.R. electronics and the Marten
Django XL loudspeakers produced results that were
truly amazing! I suspect that Marten (and Dan) are
seeing quite a lot of interest in the Djangos… at
their price point, this is a killer product.

So
this is another room that you can count on for the
real thing, year in, and year out. Once again, I
found that I could just sit down, relax, and just
take in the music. Dan Meinwald has got synergy
going, in spades… go to his room with confidence! I
do.

Another THE Show… another Audio Oasis! for Dan Meinwald and company!

ModWright/Daedalus Audio/WyWires

Dan Wright of ModWright

Later in the show, I was able to drop by the
ModWright/Daedalus Audio/WyWires room at the Hilton
and spend some time listening to some fine results
there. This combination of Dan Wright's
price-performance electronics, plus a nicely refined
input sound from the modded Oppo BDP-95, feeding the
Daedalus Athenas via WyWires was a welcome relief
from the "price-performance blues and blahs." The
sound in this room was very musical, with the Oppo
95 definitely sounding better than the stock unit
that I have in my office. Smoother, with more silk
and a nicely enhanced elegance to the sound that I
liked very much… SACDs will definitely benefit from
this, if you own (or are thinking about purchasing)
an Oppo 95! They're great universal players…which is
why they won a Brutus Award from me!

Dan Wright of ModWright with Lou Hinkley of Daedalus
Audio

I
also got to chat briefly with Lou Hinkley of
Daedalus Audio. Lou is a genuinely nice guy who
makes speakers with very beautiful natural wood
finishes…they sound very fine, and look great!
Pleasing to listen to, for sure, and a fine match
for the ModWright components, via the WyWires pipes
that were running. Alex Sventitsky definitely has it
together with his cabling, and it works and plays
well with ModWright and Daedalus. Another
synergistic match!

After spending some time listening to the music and
relaxing with Dan and Lou (didn't see Alex), it was
clear to me that this room deserved another Audio
Oasis! Award from me.

So
let it be written; so let it be done!

One World Audio/Lindemann/Voce Audio/WyWires/Zesto
Audio/Channel D

After hearing some rooms that were familiar to me,
entering Jonathan Josephson's room was something
different. Not that I wasn't aware of Lindemann; Dr. Sardonicus reviewed their 820 SACD player in past
years quite favorably, and I liked it myself quite a
lot. The Lindemann 830S balanced preamp and 855
balanced amplifier were here late last year, but I
wasn't able to squeeze serious listening to them
between RMAF 2011 and the time that they had to go
back for CES 2012, and so didn't get to do anything
significant with them. Nevertheless, I had been
hopeful that I would get to hear Lindemann at THE
Show NB 2012… and I did.

The
combination of components here may have been
unfamiliar to me, collectively, but the quality of
the music was certainly not. As I listened to the
Lindemann 825 Digital Player and Channel D sources
playing through the Lindemann electronics, via
WyWires (again!) to the Voce Audio VA-3 speakers, I
found a sound that was unique: very detailed, but
not grainy or harsh at all; dynamic, clean, and
clear audio reproduction that strayed nowhere near
analytical or tiring digital sound.

No
stereotypes; just great stereo.

While I missed the Lindemann 820 SACD/CD player (a
big mistake for Lindemann to abandon SACD, in my
opinion), the rest of the sources played well, and
produced a vibe that was inviting. Jonathan had
assembled quite a good cast here… I admit that I was
enjoying the results!

PFO
hopes to do a follow-up on the Lindemann system… I
think my colleague Dave Clark would get a real kick
out of the Lindemann lineup!

Anyways, real music here, in some reasonably compact
form factors. Kudos to Jonathan and company for
putting together a very nice vibe, and a combination
that worked so nicely for me. This weary editor
thanks them!

And
an Audio Oasis! Award for the results….

M.A. Recordings/The Signal Collection/Bel Canto

In the MA Recordings/The Signal Collection room: amazin' ain't it?!

Todd
Garfinkle of MA Recordings; Chris Sommovigo of The
Signal Collection. Think of them as the dos
amigos of high-end audio shows. I really love
these guys! Todd is a recordist who has been
producing exceptional discs for years… first in CD,
and now in high-resolution DSD and PCM. His
recordings have been haunting me for many years now.
(In fact, I'm listening to his brilliant CD,
Krushevo, right now.) And Chris has been doing
exceptional cable design work for many years now,
beginning with Illuminati. (Still have mine!)

Todd Garfinkle of MA Recordings and Chris Sommovigo
of The Signal Collection (photograph and fresco by
Robinson)

These two get along, and they have been putting
together the most amazing compact systems for the
past several years… usually a Korg DSD
recorder/playback unit (MR2000 of late)… and playing
back DSDs and 2x DSDs of Todd's recordings this time
'round via a Bel Canto integrated amplifier, and
killer little Davone MOJO omnidirectional speakers.
Pipelines are Chris' Black Cat Morpheus cables,
which are over-performing slammer-jammers. (I ought
to know; I'm using them right here, right now.)

And
these marvelous recordings, with no frills and no
ultra-buck six-figure gear, was touching me in a
very moving way.

No
doubt about it: an Audio Oasis! again for Todd and
Chris! Many thanks for the musical passion and audio
beauty that you sheltered there….

mbl North America

At
the upper end of the spectrum was the mbl reference
room, where the pleasant and urbane Jeremy Bryan was
shoveling listeners in and out to accommodate the
lines that were always forming outside of his door.
As always, the mbl suite was an elegant, seductive
experience, with a sumptuous sense of aesthetics and
a more formal beauty than is found in many a room.

Within seconds, it was clear that nothing has
changed for the worse since my last show (RMAF 2011)
with the mbl reference gear: it is supreme in every
category. The white finish with chrome logo and
accents simply underlined the fact that I was
relaxing, listening to an effortless, detailed,
presentation of a digital recording that I had never
heard before. (No, still don't know what it was.) It
didn't matter; the sense of real authority, of
dynamic power, of nuance, and of holographic
presentation echoed my prior experience with an
earlier generation of the mbl line in my own
listening room in 2008, which was a PFO
Brutus Award winner for that year.

You
have to have a budget to get serious about mbl. But
there's no question that you receive a huge return
on that investment, and the lust factor is very high
on this kit.

In
fact, sitting, relaxing, and listening to this mbl
reference system once more confirmed my decision to
review it. Believe it or not, I've been working
since 2009 for a return trip of mbl to my listening
room, and now it looks like the new gen mbl
reference system will arrive here in July. Stay
tuned.

Meanwhile, chalk up another Audio Oasis! Award; the
mbl room deserved it, without a doubt in my mind….

SonoruS Audio/Yarlung Records

In the SonoruS Audio/Yarlung Records room

Something very different here!

As
you've noticed elsewhere in this issue, with my RTR
Movement column (see
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue61/tape.htm),
I've been networking busily to develop a profile on
what's happening in open reel recording. I've
connected with a lot of fine folks, and will be
sharing more about them in the near future.

One
of my RTR connections is Arian Jansen of SonoruS
Audio. He was brought to my attention by a mutual
friend, Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records. Bob told me
about Arian's fine work in producing a new RTR
machine based upon the Revox PR99. Having owned one
of these back in the early 1990s, I was intrigued.
After contacting Arian, he agreed to ship one of his
SonoruS ATR 10 RTR machines. This spent a couple of
months with me, before returning to him just before
THE Show Newport Beach.

So
far, so good.

What
I didn't know was that Arian was developing a
complete audio chain under the SonoruS brand. Until
I arrived at his room at THE Show NB, I had no idea.
When I came in, I could see the ATR 10 in place, but
I didn't recognize the electrostatic speakers, nor
the electronics in the room. Turns out, Arian is
getting ready to release a total solution to
audiophiles.

System list:

SourcesSonoruS ATR10 Analog Tape Reproducer
Luxman DU=50 Universal disc player (didn't hear this
while I was in the room)

To
show off the lovely synergy of his SonoruS designs,
Arian Jansen first queued up his SonoruS ATR 10 RTR
machine with a 15 ips half-track recording of
Ruekert Lieder from Mahler, performed by Sasha
Cooke, and remarkably well recorded by Bob Attiyeh
of Yarlung Records (http://www.yarlungrecords.com).
Yarlung has produced a series of new open reel
analogue masters, all of which are simply stellar,
both for performance and for production. On the
SonoruS system, the sound in that room was
extraordinary: harmonically rich and true,
transparent, with natural ease and a
three-dimensional presentation of the tape. To say
that I was taken by the music would be a serious
understatement… I could have stayed in this room for
quite a long time!

The
second piece that Arian played for us was an excerpt
from the opera Le Nozze di Figaro that he
tells me was "…originally recorded in multi-channel DSD, but remastered by me in 2 channel using the
SonoruS Holographic Imaging Process." (For more on
that process, see Arian's guest article elsewhere in
this issue.) I was knocked out by the sense of
envelopment of this recording: it truly seemed to
be a real soundstage, rather than some phasey
phony-sound surround process.

Excellent! I enjoyed every minute of these
magnificent demos from open reel tape via the
SonoruS system, which mated OTLs and electrostatic
speakers in a very winning way. It made me wish that
I had another hour or two there, just to listen!

And
that's definitely a sign of a PFO Audio
Oasis! Award room.

Von Schweikert/Jolida/United Home Audio

The view in the Von Schweikert Research/Jolida
Audio/United Home Audio room

Eureka,
all over again!

This
was a combination that I had encountered at the
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2011. It had surprised me
there…an audio ambush!

Not
Von Schweikert Research, of course. I've had tons of
experience with the VSR line since the days of the
breakthrough VR-4 and VR-4 Silver back in the '90s.
I have personally reviewed them, owned some of them,
and have heard most of the rest at shows for many
years now.

Greg Beron of United Home Audio with his brilliant
UHA RTR machine, outfitted with Reel-Tronix take-up
(left reel).

No,
what had surprised me was the combination of the
VSR-44 speakers (a re-visiting of the classic VR-4)
with the reasonably-priced over-performing Jolida
tubed electronics, being fed by a United Home Audio
reel-to-reel machine, spinning a pile of nice titles
from The Tape Project, Opus3, and others.

Bruce Brown of Puget Sound Studios and Greg Beron of
United Home Audio

SpeakersVon Schweikert VR-44 - Passive
$22,000/pair, and Active $25,000/pair
We had the Active pair in the room with 300w amp
driving the woofers.

Just
like last October at RMAF 2011, the sound in this
room was arresting: superior RTR recordings from
The Tape Project, Opus3, and others. ¼" half-track
tapes in abundance… unmistakable reference-grade
elegance on the source side, of a certainty! Once
you've spent some time with open reel tapes, you're
not easily fooled by so many of the digital
standards that claim to be exceptional (all PCM, by
the way), but are not. Only DSD and Double-DSD, and
the very finest turntables, give us the sort of
experience to be found with source tapes and RTR
playback of this caliber.

Kudos to all here! And an Audio Oasis! award to all…

YG Acoustics/Kubala-Sosna/Luxman/Brinkmann/Accuphase

The YG Acoustics/Kubala-Sosna/Luxman/Brinkmann
lair...

Another homecoming! In this room, my
outstanding audio buds Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna
and Bill Parish of GTT Audio bid me a welcoming
return to a room with a ton of vinyl and some
unforgettable sound.

I
have heard the YG Acoustics Anat III's with the K-S
Elation! cables many times, and am quite familiar
with the sound with darTZeel and Tenor amplifiers.
This was my first time to hear them with Luxman
electronics, however. The combination was very
friendly, it seems; the sound in this room was
detailed, quick, and nicely controlled, with the
YG's doing their usual best to present a very
convincing soundstage. The bass was tight, not lean,
in this rather large room, and harmonics were
nailed. You couldn't miss the effortless musicality,
and you wouldn't want to. I hadn't heard the Brinkmann turntable before, and liked what I was
hearing. Nice work…the Luxman phono amp must be
quite solid.

Bill
and Joe were piling on the great vinyl, with some
terrific real music! You know: the stuff
that most of us really listen to. I particularly dug
the Eagles as they were queued up on the
Brinkmann… Joe, Bill and I rockin' out to the tunes!

Vinyl sounded especially good on this system, and
since it was going on, album after album, and since
my soul was telling my body, "Don't you be
a-goin' nowhere!", I stayed. For quite a while.

I
don't need any other evidence… once again, an Audio
Oasis! Award for these gents!

Burmester North America/Genesis/Oracle

The Burmester/Oracle stack: great beauty and
marvelous performance meet…

Finally, there is a room that was quite special for
several reasons. First, I have spent some time with
the current generation of Burmester components, and
find that they are in the top flight of audio
electronics. In fact, their 100 phono amp is one of
the very best I've ever heard; see my Brutus Award
for it at the end of 2011 (http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue58/brutusdr2.htm).
I naturally made it over to Robb Niemann's
Burmester/Genesis/Oracle Audio room, to say hello
again. Robb is always an extremely congenial host… a
great fellow in every way… and I was really looking
forward to seeing and hearing his room once more.

Anne Bisson: a passion for the music… it doesn't get
more live than this! In the background, the
Genesis 5.3 loudspeaker…

And
amigos, I'm glad that I did! As I got close, I
thought, "Wow! That's some bloody realistic sound!
The voice is live!" Upon walking into the
room, I saw why: the lovely and talented singer,
Anne Bisson, was actually singing and dancing in the
room, right along with one of her albums that was
spinning on the Oracle Delphi TT. I sat down,
entranced. Anne has a sparkling presence, and her
music delighted me. Being able to hear how nicely
the Burmester/Genesis/Oracle/Absolute Fidelity
system matched with the actual voice of the singer
herself was pretty gratifying!

Jacques Riendeau of Oracle, Anne Bisson, and Robb
Niemann of Burmester North America

Jacques Riendeau of Oracle spent some time
demonstrating the Oracle Micro Vibration Stabilizer
System, which really did a fine job of isolating the
Delphi, and of tuning the level of damping applied
to playback isolation. Pretty impressive stuff. And
Anne's LPs certainly sounded terrific via the Oracle
system, though the Burmester electronics and Genesis
speakers figured very large in what I was hearing.

What's to say?! This room was full of
music, life, and great beauty everywhere I looked. I
spent a while here, just sitting back late in the
show, enjoying what I was seeing and hearing. I have
got to get a complete Burmester reference
system to Portland sometime soon!

Splendid in every way… a very highly
recommended system.

And a true Audio Oasis!

Done!

And so…

…another THE Show gone, and many fine
memories it left with me. All of the creative
community here at PFO get a real blast out of
attending these great events, and sharing our
impressions with you. It's a ton of work, believe
me… you wouldn't believe the time that goes into show
preparation, logistics, costs/accounting, tracking
events, preparing for seminars, taking notes,
photographing, and all the production work that
follows a major audio event. This ain't for weenies,
folks!

But we do manage to have a terrific
time, and host as many friends and attendees at the
PFO Hospitality Room as we can! If you can't
enjoy life, and a wonderful passion like fine audio,
what's the point, eh?

So, along with Carol, we all raise
our glasses in a toast to all our PFO friends
around the world, and hope that we see you sooner or
later at one of these audio shows! If you're not
here, you're missing out…!